On July 8th, CRHIC’s first new time air train is assembled and rolls off the production line. Being a new type of rail transit product developed by CRHIC, New Time train includes straddle, maglev and suspended rail transit vehicles. It will provide customers with a package of solutions to explore a new mode of coordinated development for rail transit, new-type urbanization and local characteristic industries. The air train rolling off the line is the suspension monorail.

The head looks like an upside-down subway head. Such design with a raised top and a concave bottom is easy for drivers to look down from the air and watch the road.

New Time train has a smaller car than subway. Its single car is only half as long as the subway, about 11m long and 2.4m wide, 0.4m shorter than the subway.

A single car can hold 80 to 90 people, a third of the capacity of a subway car. With three to five cars, each train can carry 300 to 400 people. The New Time train will have a top speed about 70 kilometers per hour and a distance of 5 meters above the ground from its bottom, which will not affect the normal operation of the road.

 Advantages of air train

[Low cost] Air train costs a fifth as much as the subway.

[Less land] Only one square meter green belt of urban road is needed to set up a column, which greatly reduces the cost of urban demolition, and will not occupy the land for urban road.

[Low threshold] In 2018, the National Development and Reform Commission issued the Opinions on Further Strengthening Urban Rail Transit Planning and Construction, raising the threshold for subway construction. For example, the government debt ratio of the applying city in the past three years should not be higher than 120%, the local general public finance budget revenue should be more than 30 billion Yuan, the regional GDP should be more than 300 billion Yuan, and the urban resident population should be more than 3 million. The threshold for the air train construction is low. With a carrying capacity of more than 10,000 passengers per hour, air train is able to basically meet the transportation needs of key cities with a permanent resident population of 1 million to 3 million.

It is reported that China is the third country after Germany and Japan to possess air train technology. Industry insiders say that, Leshan in Sichuan Province, Hanzhong and Hancheng in Shaanxi Province expect to build air train. At the beginning of last year, a suspended air rail test line was built in Qingdao. With rail transit construction mode becoming diverse, it is expected that air train will be put into use in China soon.